nmah6417.xml

nmah6417.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2004-01-26

I wanted to write one more entry, for now. I think that people have become meaner to each other, since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I think they distrust one another more, too. The evil of the wars Bush wages for oil has permeated the culture. It is a frightening place to live. I now sincerely wish I left here long ago, though I was born here. I'm not sure what I'll do now.
I think, too, that people have internalized the prevailing bigotry of the Bush administration to some extent. The fact that only rich white men are given power in the so-called Justice Department, for instance, under Ashcroft, and his bizarre views on homophobia, too. There is a fear here that didn't exist before I don't like. I feel more than ever for the indigenous people of this land, because I know now more how disenfranchised they must feel, having been "conquered" so long ago and yet still being here. I don't really feel "conquered," but disenfranchised, yes, so maybe I can't really empathize entirely from personal experience, but I know some of that pain, now.
I am still wondering if I can get compensated. I notice your website has resources for that, but I doubt I ever will. I can tell you that the changes come over me since the terrorist attacks have made me a more sober person when it comes to such things. I probably never again will take for granted money I inherit, since it can make things like seeking enlightenment much easier. It definitely facilitates that. I'm still wondering how to do that, frankly, even after all my experiences, which have not been so good, all the time. I have felt unaccepted where I'd wanted to be accepted, and I wonder where I really do "fit in," to be honest, in regards to this. Maybe time will tell.
Frankly, I find the pursuit of compensation to be a difficult and discouraging process, so I don't know if I will pursue it even here, where at least you get back to me, via computer. You are the only ones who have cared that much, practically. A woman named Ernie Rampola, from the Red Cross, tried hard to find compensation, but the most I ever came up with was counseling, which I didn't take advantage of, having my own brilliant therapist, Soonja Kim-Raynor.
She is helping me with my mother, who didn't want me to come at Christmas, or my birthday before that in July, because Dad's tyrannical. Soonja is calling my mother and we will have a 3-way phone session, soon.
I wanted to write one more thing about my late Uncle Felix--he put me up in a house he owned on Hollywood Avenue in rural Silver Spring, Maryland, back in the 70s, when I was having trouble with my father "at home," on Cherry Tree Lane, in his house. I spent the summer between 11th and 12th grades there, and while it was somewhat of a "reprieve" from the violence, the college students there didn't want me around, and that was a nuisance. He was about the only person who helped me during that time, and I am eternally grateful to him for that, too. So, you see, he really was a great man to me--a good one, anyway. His spirit has been wise, in the place where he is, now. He's been my most steadfast guardian angel.
I don't know what else to write. I have been writing a book about my first years devoted to Amma, and it may become a post-9/11 piece, since I met her the summer before that, and enlightenment, and not necessarily Amma, has been my prime focus since then, though she's been my "satguru." I'm not sure I accept her as such, but possibly. It's hard to tell--my devotion to her waxes and wanes, but mostly, since Mom's breast cancer, more or less, it has waned. I feel like this whole path has, and my parents don't believe in it--that Felix's spirit could ever have done that, for one. Or that spiritual liberation is life's highest goal, for another.
I gave up writing that book last summer, pretty much, except when I saw a film Gwyneth Paltrow was in, "Sylvia," about Sylvia Plath, the poet who killed herself. That got me to write the book, again, for a time, but now, I've reached a "mum" period, again, after the holidays, which I didn't want to write through, since I found it depressing to relive such bad memories, mostly. I got as far as the fall, just before I went to Deer Park and tried to get Robert Redford, who in on the board of the Natural Defense Resource Council, to form a group to save the wilderness at Muir Beach. I read he and Kathy, his mistress, live near here, somewhere--one of his many properties--but he never responded. I'd written in response to his mass mailing from NRDC about the desecration of environmental laws since Bush took office. I wrote Bush a long letter, about much of this here, only less detailed and I didn't hear back from him, either.
When I got back from Deer Park, with no luck there, as I'd tried to integrate into that community before the winter retreat, ongoing now, I found out about the Big Lagoon Working Group, which is a government organization and is to restore wetland habitats to as near as possible to 1853 levels. But it really isn't addressing the bacteria problem in Redwood Creek or the cutting of ancient trees and use of round-up on the stumps.
My luck getting prominent people interested in my causes is not good, and I think that I ought to stop trying, since it turns up a goose-egg, most of the time.
An "irony"--I saw "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton," recently, on a whim, because it didn't seem like my type of film. It was made by Dreamworks, which is run by Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, out of Hollywood. I had informed them of Leonardo's not showing up at his own event in June, and sure enough, here was a film depicting a slightly similar, though not realistic, situation, where a Hollywood "bad boy" tries to improve his image by holding a fundraiser on-line to "win a date." I'm not kidding. If nothing else, I feel like writing my book, some more, after that, though I've yet to sit down at the computer and try. I do feel like I should do that for myself, if no one else, since I can't believe how difficult this journey to seek "life's highest goal," enlightenment, has been.
I used to imagine Felix ask if I have children--I do not. And "he'd" say that I should go to Plum Village, then, but now, after what happened at Deer Park, no. Hardly anyone's there, now, anyway, since most of the sangha is at Deer Park. My life's in ruins, and here it is, "on display," for Ashcroft and company to see--and "gloat" over. But one day, I will be doing better, I can tell.
Once, about two years ago, I emailed Bush I was praying for peace, nightly, as Amma said. And the next day, the papers said that the Taliban had pulled out of Kabul and that Bush and Vladmir Putin had reached an agreement to reduce nuclear arms by 2/3 over the next ten years.
I feel like we've gotten "used" to Bush, too, which is scary. I feel numb when it comes to him and Ashcroft, at times. I used to be more angry with them, and the fact we've gotten used to the coup they pulled to gain power has deadened that, so maybe there's an "upshot" to that, after all. But I want a legitimate, ethical, and caring government, like everyone else does, and this is not that.
I really will go now. You know, I've written at Bruce's website some more since every last word of the long letters I wrote him there were pulled by his "diabolical" webmaster, Dan Levy. But frankly, it reminds me of being in a rank bar or something, the way people are there, and I "left."
I keep phoning an assistant. Laura Brown, at New College in the women's spirituality program, and I don't get any information on the offerings there, so far, so I may "miss" this semester. I don't really think I'm that ready to commit, anyway.
I went to Emerald Earth, a natural building community in Mendocino County, but I doubt I'll live there. I may go back and help out, and, when the time comes, I will employ the "master builder," there, Michael G. Smith, to help me build a sustainable house.
As you can see, my enthusiasm wanes, too, not just devotion to one teacher or another. I went to the City of 10,000 Buddhas in Talmage recently, too, but their schedule is too demanding--from 4AM to midnight, every day, meditating, and it is exhausting, so I didn't return much. But given how my Uncle Felix "put it" the moment the first plane struck, I believe he may have meant for me to do something like that--live in a Zen community, since enlightenment is what they seek all the time. It was not "meant to be," however, though.
We'll see how it goes--maybe next time I write, I won't have anything so depressing to add. :)
Love,
Vivian